


Inside a Computer (Extended Ending)

by Mook5



Category: Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 03:42:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8430484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mook5/pseuds/Mook5
Summary: Pritchard finds a not so safe way to connect himself into Sarif Industry's computers. New ending.(first fic ever, imported from tumblr.)





	

Pritchard took out his hair tie and quickly connected a computer cord into a very small slot behind his ear. He usually did this to update his cerebral computer parts but this time was different. Some of the coworkers who studied brain augments had a pet project with trying to scan in the entire brain into an actual readable piece of data. As in the computer and brain could sync with each other. This of course completely fascinated Pritchard. If he could sync them up, why, there was absolutely nothing he could not find or see in the entire building’s network.  
The coworkers agreed to scan his brain and actually got the computer data of it. Now, they didn’t actually GIVE the brain scan over to Pritchard, but once they saved it on the building’s servers he knew exactly how to get to it.

On his free time he’d been writing a program that would be compatible with his augment and today in his office during his break, he’d decided to give it a try. He’d been too excited to think about what might happen.  
Once hooked up, everything looked fine, alright good. And initiate sync…

The room around him vanished, the floors and walls turned into pieces of data. Pritchard wasn’t sure if he should cheer or start panicking. There was data everywhere and it started to build itself into a city. He took a deep breath and walked over to packs of data to observe it. Emails! He smiled and ran over to more packs of data. Security! He was like a little kid looking for easter eggs. He thought about the time and data lifted itself from the floor and formed into a clock. Oh this is so cool. However his break was nearly up. Time to get out.  
…But how does one do that? He quickly ran over to the first place he remembered and found a door. It was locked, and words formed above the door saying “Connection lost”. Oh shit.

“Fucckkk” He spun around, trying not to panic. He did NOT want to tell anyone about this. There was only one person who he actually trusted to not share this…experience and he dreaded THAT. Pritchard took a deep breath and ran over to the email data, which built itself into a nifty little building. He walked in and a blank email appeared, ready to be written.

 

Jensen,

Please report to my office immediately.

-Frank Pritchard

 

Sent. He scurried back over to the big locked door.

After what felt like AGES, the door started to glow. Pritchard sighed with relief. He walked inside, letting everything turn black around him.

Pritchard blinked his eyes open. Jesus, everything hurt like a bitch. He found himself on the floor, Jensen hovering over him staring at him hard.

“Ahem…um, thanks…” Pritchard coughed and tried to get up.

Jensen pushed him back down gently. “You want to tell me what happened?”

“Um. Not really. It was nothing, really” Pritchard found it quite hard to add that sarcastic tone to his voice. He was also surprised to find how damn weak he was feeling.

“Then I’m calling 911.” Jensen replied, knowing how much Pritchard hated that idea.

“What? No! Fine, I was playing around with computer programs.” Pritchard frowned.

Jensen blinked. “You think I’m fucking stupid? Pritchard I got your email and I come in here to find you dead on the floor.”

Pritchard went white. “Wh-what?”

“It took five fucking minutes to get you breathing again and I still couldn’t get you to wake up.” Jensen growled. “I look at your damn computer and its flashing an error with cerebral connection and terminating connection. If I never came in here and hooked you back up you would’ve been dead. And now your telling me you were PLAYING around with the computer?”

Pritchard found he couldn’t look Jensen in the eye. Boy that was a stupid move. There must have been a bug, he didn’t even think about the consequences if something went wrong. He took a deep breath, no wonder his chest hurt so damn much.

“I think you had a seizure and it yanked the cord out.” Jensen said more softly, he actually kinda felt bad for how harshly he sounded earlier. He started to examine Pritchard with the casie-mod. Surprisingly everything looked alright, though his mental state seemed completely out of whack. “You look alright, how do you feel?”

“Like shit.” Pritchard muttered. He couldn’t tell what was hurting more, his body or his pride.

“Can you sit up?” Jensen carefully helped Pritchard, still keeping the casie-mod active.

Pritchard was out of breath instantly and grew red. Now he was positive his pride was suffering more.

Jensen sighed and carefully picked up the thin man, carrying him over to his couch. “Take the rest of the day off, Francis. Do you need anything?”

“No…” Pritchard whispered, not looking at Jensen. He’d never felt so stupid in his life.

Jensen rolled his eyes quickly. “Alright, I’m going to tell Sarif you got sick today, call me through your infolink if you need anything.”

“…thanks, Jensen…” Pritchard’s voice cracking a bit. He wouldn’t actually admit how grateful he was

 

And of course Pritchard found himself back in that cyber world later. This time it was more frightening. He remembered what happened last time, nearly dying from the buggy syncing. However that back door wasn’t only locked, it was gone. Vanished. “NO!!!” Why the fuck was this happening? Didn’t he learn the first time?! He sprinted over to the email cyber building.

 

Jensen, I don’t know what happened, I’m back in the computer and the door, the fucking door is gone please help

-Pritchard.

 

Fuck fuck fuck, The door was gone, he blew it, he told himself he wouldn’t do this again, and his body was probably rotting away in his office. He would never get out. He bolted to check on the door. Still no trace of the exit.

Data seeped through the ground and formed into an email that floated into his hands

Pritchard,

I told you not to connect again. I couldn’t wake you up this time. I’m sorry Francis. The computer is being destroyed tonight.

-Jensen

 

“This isn’t happening…” Pritchard dropped the email, watching it disintegrate. “This…NO!!! NO NO NO!!!” he screamed, banging on the black empty wall where the door should be. “JENSEN! GET ME OUT OF HERE!” He screamed loudly. He was dead and he was going to die again. And for what? A stupid fucking project that had nothing to do with anything? He didn’t even remember connecting to it again this time.

A small window floated towards him, it looked like a live stream of someones voice.  
“Pritchard?…” Jensen’s voice.

“JENSEN!!” Pritchard crawled over to the window. “Jensen I don’t know what happened please get me out of here, I don’t want to be in here Jensen!!”

“Pritchard wake up.”

“Get me out of here!!” Pritchard screamed into the window.

“Francis, come on, wake up.”

Pritchard shot awake, drenched with sweat and gasping for air. What the…

He found himself back on the couch where Jensen last left him. Jensen was grabbing onto Pritchard’s shoulders and had been trying to gently shake the man awake.

Jensen let go, eyeing him carefully. “It’s almost 8 pm…Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, Jensen…” Pritchard rubbed his face and looked back up, of course, Jensen was waiting for an explanation. “Just…nightmares.”

“So you want to tell me what exactly happened earlier?” Jensen lifted a brow.

Pritchard drew a deep breath and explained about the pet project, the computer brain scan, and even the cyber world. He thought Jensen would just get up and leave at this fantasy nonsense but he just sat and listened carefully.

“You know how dangerous this sounds?” Jensen finally spoke up when Pritchard finished speaking.

Pritchard couldn’t shrug off the dream. It started to sink in just how serious that situation was.

“Francis?…”

Pritchard snapped up his head. “Yes?”

Jensen flipped on some mods and examined Pritchard again. “You sure you are alright? Looks like your neural augment is off.”

“Mm” Pritchard pushed Jensen off and carefully wobbled over to his computer, Jensen sticking too close for comfort. “Just got to turn it back on…” Visions of being trapped in that cyber world flooded his mind as he shakily messed with his hair to find the input behind his ear.

“You sure that’s a good idea? I can take you to the LIMB clinic.” Jensen crossed his arms, watching him.

“It’s fine, Jensen. I do it all the time.” Pritchard stuck up his nose, trying to appear back to normal. Who was he kidding, Jensen was probably watching his borderline panic attack through his mods. He plugged in the cord with shaky hands. He ran a program to reboot the neural aug aannnd-

 

“Initiating connection”

 

Pritchard stared in disbelief. He forgot he programmed this shit to start up when he hooked it up, what was he thinking?! Could anything else POSSIBLY go wrong? “Shit!!”

Jensen was watching him carefully, and jumped when Pritchard cried out. Pritchard went for the cord, but Jensen snatched his hand before he could reach it. Disconnecting nearly killed Pritchard last time, he wasn’t going to let that happen again. “Pritchard? What’s going on?”

Pritchard went limp as the computer roared to life. Jensen made a frustrated noise in his throat. He crouched and watched the computer. How was this even possible? Pritchard looked like some dead body hooked up to a computer, but he was still breathing. How long can a person last like that?

A voice spoke into Jensen’s infolink. Unbelievably, it was Pritchard. “Jensen can you hear me?”

“What the hell?…” Jensen was staring right at Pritchard’s limp body and here he was talking to him. “What, how the hell?”

“Look I think I got this, It’s a little more stable this time, or maybe it makes more sense to me this time, I don’t know.” Pritchard sounded a little more confident.

“Francis I want you to get out of there, right now.” Jensen groaned, is he really going to try and cheat death twice to learn a fucking lesson?

“No, I got it, I can probably stay in here longer if you make sure the cable doesn’t disconnect, it’ll be fine this time.”

Yep, he was probably going to either cheat death twice or die this time. “Pritchard, I’m not your damn babysitter, get the hell out of there.”

“Wait, listen, I can see everything Jensen, I’m seeing holes that were invisible from outside the computer, I can fix this. Let me fix this and I’ll be right out.”

Jensen couldn’t help but rub his face from Pritchard’s ignorance.

3 minutes have passed, Pritchard’s brain temperature went up 5 degrees. “Francis are you done yet?”

“I found evidence of someone hacking into our medical results, Jensen. I think I can fix this.”

Jensen frowned. “Can’t you do that out here?”

“I’m already in here, I got this, this is serious stuff Jensen. Annddd aha, let me move this here…and Jensen you wouldn’t believe how this place looks. It’s like that Tron movie.”

“What movie?”

“I always overestimate your knowledge in computer culture, you know that?” Pritchard said, Jensen could practically feel that smug smile. “Anyways, I almost, wow I’m going to have to fix that. To think this network looked so stable from outside the computer..”

Jensen rolled his eyes and looked back at Pritchard’s body. His brain temperature continued to rise rapidly. “Alright Pritchard, time to get out.”

“Hold on, I keep finding these holes, they are so easy to fix from in here.”

“Pritchard, I’m serious, you have a dangerously high fever.”

“Say what?”

“I think your brain is controlling the computer and not the other way around, a human brain can’t do something like-Shit.”

Pritchard’s body started to convulse, Jensen mentally kicked himself for not seeing this coming. He grabbed Pritchard to keep him from falling off the chair, the LAST thing he needed to happen was let that cord disconnect. “Francis get the fuck back out here!!”

When Pritchard heard Jensen curse and shout out, he knew it was time to get the hell out. He dashed for the exit door, luckily it was still connected.

Pritchard gasped awake finding Jensen’s arms wrapped around him. “Um…what?” Holy crap his head was on fire. Was he drooling? What the hell?

Jensen steadied him. “For real, that was the last time you do that, got it?”

“Mmm?” Pritchard frowned.

“Come on, Francis, I signed up to protect Sarif employees, not babysitting them, we need to get that fever down.” Now a man who can easily silently lift vending machines found lifting Pritchard was like lifting a water bottle. Luckily everyone went home by now because the sight of Jensen hauling this goofball around was…not a sight that Jensen wanted to share. He took the tech to the bathroom to spray cold water on him. Once Pritchard’s temperature fell a bit he began to spout stuff Jensen didn’t want to hear.

“It’s incredibly efficient, what I need to do is rewrite the program.” Pritchard said lethargically, not even aware that Jensen was carrying him back to his office.

“Francis, there won’t be a next time, I’m serious. You’re coming home with me, absolutely no computers for the night.”

"Fiiine, let me grab my computer." Pritchard slurred out.

Jensen just shook his head at the confused man over his shoulder. "Sorry Francis, you're leaving that here."

Pritchard's head cleared a much more on the walk back to Jensen's Apartment. He stopped for a second to look around.

Jensen stopped as well, lifting an eyebrow and flipping on some visual mods. "Everything alright?" Interesting, apparently Pritchard's neural aug just flipped itself on. That might explain the super confused state he was in. He briefly wondered what the aug was for, since Pritchard never really told him.

"Wait, where are we?" Pritchard frowned. He had his bag on him, but not his computer. Has that even happened before? "Where's my computer?"

"Remember? It's back at your office. And you are staying at my place tonight so I don't catch you on any computers." Jensen crossed his arms.

"Wait, what?!" Pritchard double took a look at him. "When the hell did I agree to this?"

"When I saved your ass two times today. I SHOULD take you to a LIMB clinic, but you keep acting like a child about that one. Now, come on." Jensen said and walked off.

Hmph, Pritchard didn't have to deal with this, he could- of course not, Jensen apparently had his keys, he thought as he rummaged through his pockets. It looked like he wasn't getting out of this one.

 

Pritchard sat on Jensen's couch flipping through the tv channels. 5000 channels and still nothing good is on. His mind drifted back to that computer world. It was a dangerous tool but look at how much he could do with it. If he could only...that was probably why Jensen had him stay here, wasn't it? "Don't you have video games? A tablet? Perhaps even a calculator?" He finally spoke up.

"Nope." Jensen poured two bowls of cereal and brought one over to Pritchard.

"And I don't suppose you have any REAL food?" Pritchard eyed him, taking the bowl.

"Nope." Jensen replied, the corner of his mouth curving upwards only so slightly.

Pritchard rolled his eyes and went back to flipping through channels and stopped on of all movies, The Matrix. Jensen couldn't help but stand there and watch too while munching away. "So is that what your little computer world was like? Could you learn Kung Fu with a press of a button?"

"Very funny. It wasn't very...natural. Well, the matrix had a lot of designing and a lot of separate people who could alter and write programs. I was the first person who went in there, it was like an empty place that started to build with floating particles, or pieces of data. Or maybe it was always there, it could've been my head trying to make sense of what it was seeing. Maybe someday it could look like the matrix."

"And the giant robots?" Jensen added, nodded his head at the movie.

"I HIGHLY doubt mankind will live long enough to see that, besides if I could just-"

"You remember the part about never going back in there, right?" Jensen's voice was stern.

"But-"

"Francis." Jensen leaned forward. "If you go in there again, you WILL die. I don't even think your neural implant could take another run. It turned on only a couple of hours ago."

Pritchard grew a bit red. "I um, oh. I'm a bit...disoriented when that gets turned off." It only turns itself off under extreme stress, maybe Jensen was right.

"So I've noticed. Forget about that computer world. Promise me you will delete whatever you made to get in there in the first place."

"But this stuff could lead to entirely new discoveries! I co-"

"Francis." Jensen cut him off with a growl. "I saved your life. Twice. In return, you delete that program. You owe me."

Pritchard didn't say anything back. He just didn't want to admit Jensen was right or give in that easily.

"I'm going to bed, I put a pillow and a blanket on the table." Jensen said, throwing his now empty cereal bowl into the sink.

"Well, SWEET dreams then." Pritchard said sarcastically. 

 

After a night of not so sweet dreams himself, Pritchard woke up with a fresh cup of coffee near him. At that moment was when he really realized exactly why Jensen didn’t want him messing around with that computer world. He reached for the cup, thinking to himself about it. Jensen didn't have to do any of this, yet he put his entire day making sure Pritchard didn't get himself killed. Alright, he told himself, he would delete everything. He'll keep Jensen's promise.


End file.
